Synopsis:
Like many folks, I started out with simple unit testing after the fact and eventually proceeded to Test-Driven Development. As I have ripened in age and (hopefully) experience I have started to see the need for something beyond TDD, BDD, STDD, DDD, etc - something that works at all levels of a project and for all project roles - developers, testers, managers and customers included.

In this talk, I'll tell about my own journey and where I think we need to go if we want to move beyond nominal "Agile Development" to real mastery. Along the way, I'll illustrate with bits of NUnit tests (including some new features) as well as some other testing approaches."

Bio:
Charlie Poole has spent more than 30 years as a software developer, designer, project manager, trainer and coach. After a long career in the government sector, he began working independently in 1996 with clients ranging from Microsoft to government agencies to internet startups.

Charlie's technical background is long and broad. In recent years, he has specialized in C++ and C# development in cross-platform settings. He has worked with the .NET framework since its inception, is one of the authors of the NUnit .NET testing framework and contributes to several other Open Source projects.

"For the past ten years, Charlie has worked as an Agile coach and
trainer. He is a familiar presence at Agile and Open Source events and is one of the founders of the Agile Open Northwest conference." 

The C# language is very much alive and changing to meet the on-going demands of developers. The Visual Studio 2010 and .NET Framework 4.0 release ushers in C# 4.0, bringing a new set of features in the way of named and optional parameters; co- and contra-variance ("yeah, whatever *that* is," I hear you cry); COM interop; and dynamic language support. We'll look at these features in action in working code, and how they make you, the developer, more productive than ever before. And, yes, I will explain covariance and contravariance in a way that you can understand, remember, and come to love!

Stuart Celarier
Stuart Celarier is a software architect and technologist in Portland, Oregon. He is a Microsoft MVP on Connected Systems and member of the INETA Speakers Bureau. Stuart is a frequent speaker at .NET user groups, code camps, and other professional events, and has chairs the Birds-of-a-Feather track at PDC and TechEd North America conferences. Stuart is a director of the Portland Code Camp and serves on the Software Association of Oregon's Developer Forum steering committee.
Email: stuart@visualstuart.net